Transcripts For CSPAN Conservative Urban Development Policy 20170731

Take you live now for coverage sponsored by the american conservative. Making a case what they call traditional urbanism in developing cities and towns. One coverage here now cspan. Basedter right think tank here in town. Moment to thank hillsdale college, kirby center us ouse thisring great facility. Also beingis broadcast on cspan. I want to thank them for being those wholl and thank are joining us on cspan for this discussion. To also our audience how the usual reminder to silence phones. L although we do encourage live you so incline. Urbanism. Ive i also hope youll take a moment get home later or now, to follow both the american conservative and the R Street Institute can findfacebook, you our website. In addition the new urbanism the american conservative has their own account. I like to thank our donors and sponsors who made this event and urbanismnuing new program possible. Wilber, bradshaw night and dominique watkins. Thank you for your support of urbanismt and new program. I like to acknowledge our boardan conservative howard. N the audience, i i believe i saw Scott Mcconnell here as well. Moment toe to take a thank the people who are less theble both of the staff of r street newt and the american conservative. Before we get started with the the newit background on Urbanism Initiative of the american conservative. Three years ago, about this time in 2014, the american conservative does what it does best. Which is to challenge status quo thinking among conservatives and policy area and challenge. Continuing same course whats good for the country, community and ordinary citizens. Founded ingazine was 2002 for those of you who dont becoming ofue was the iraq war and the resources wasted on that and intervention abroad. At that time, washington would to regret that. The american conservatives only voice on the right cautioning that intervention. Fast forward to 2014, many of editors and contributors realize theres a similar issue. C which the current approach pursued by our government that levels, state, local and federal and well be hearing from a local Government Official to a long term wea weakening of politics. Thats the state of our built environment in the quality in places which we live, work and raise our children is the one were here to talk about today. To put this in some larger context, i think since the end ii, theres been clearal dramatic reshaping of just in theent not big cities but smaller town and suburban neighborhoods. Much of this change was set in war by there the mass produced automobile. But after greatest generation returned home to give birth to the large baby boomer generation that set off a great demand. Governmenteral increasing role by shaping this environment by create incentives, onurbia and culdesac style neighborhood format that many generations and many of us grown up in. With large shopping malls and shopping parks surrounded by lots. Of parking which aim to replace these areas. N commercial icon,reat republican Dwight Eisenhower created the interstate highway system. Known as the really officially National System of interstate and defense highway. Once and for all made the car, i preferred mode of transportation not only between but reshapedareas them as well. Lot of people have these big long commute. As a result, destroying lot of these long established neighborhoods. And at the same time, federal urban Renewal Program encouraged country toss the engage in misguided called creating these big housing projects where people in were isolated and faced rise in crime and some downtown cities neverrge recovererecovered from that brul surgery that removed much of our cultural heritage. Along the way, i think there were dissenters from this project. Which was largely bipartisan among those in power. Perhaps most prominent certainly audience 1960s jacob. Ane stopped lowerly manhattan expressway project the plowing right through dense urban neighborhoods there. She and other the werent able save the great masterpiece in midtown manhattan. Wreckingion, which a ball in 1964. Theres now an effort among some to rebuildes to try great space. Please check out those articles online. The next step in this movement is later on in the 1980s after initial reactions. Some people began to engage not reactions tost and what was happening to the landscape of our cities and create a work to positive kind of agenda to involve local government, developersl estate in a way that could rediscover older ways of building for places for people to live and work. That Movement Congress of the new urbanism. Was celebrated 25 years of success both in doing new development and restoring an old urban fabric that creates kind of places many people want to live. Suburbs or older neighborhoods. New urban whos been working now for three years on this project, have more left to Center Politics generally happy to have conservative who supportive more humane environment. Here we are today three years into this. Urbanismall new initiative. This project i think american outlet onve is only the right to take these issues. In the past three years, we published in our print Magazine Online on our issues. We pursued two strand of inquiries ways looking at the inquiries. I see these two strands first, cultural one. How people imagine the built environment. It. re placed within how they can tap into sort of these great tradition of design. Ture and urban at least before world war ii. Made our city, towns and suburbs to live. Ces as conservatives were called here to try to work out how families can thrive in urban perhaps with one family car and living with less amenities. We make this aan choice. Le secondly, second strand i think well address today beyond how wecultural strand of reshape the conversation is, the policy. I think at least couple of people on the first panel focus area. T that involves creating a Regulatory Environment and promoting infrastructure that walkable urbanism. Infrastructure now really excludes that possibility even as a choice for folks. Removing it involved regulations like strict parking minimums. Were removing things that allow so peopledevelopment can live above the store as theyve done for centuries or 60 years. St 50 which essentially made that illegal in other places. Also means building more housing period. Urban housing in metro areas which many family live in these places are priced out of especially in expensive markets like San Francisco, washington and boston and new york. Hopefully that creates a kind of frame work to start our with our initial panel. I want to introduce our we get started. Myst panelist initially to left is jason segty who is the of Planning Urban Development and assistant to mayor city of akron. He previously was director of akron metropolitan area study. Rtation over seeing all the transportation funds in greater akron. Been a long hes time reader of tac. Which im happy to hear that we reader in akron. Second panelist to the left is gracie olmsted. The former colleague of mine at the american conservative. Now the associate managing federalist. E weekly news letter for women. Besidesread her writing in the federalist and american conservative. And catholictoday real life and gracie will talk about howy in part all these lessons apply also to towns and rural areas lessons aree lesson continuum. Finally, unfortunately michael had a family emergency and had to cancel. Formerpy to say my colleague Jonathan Coppage represents our r street. This event. Is visiting senior fella with the R Street Institute will be stepping in an r street, john researches urbanism in built environment and previously, the americangue at conservative. Initially started this whole new Urbanism Initiative three years ago around this time today. To all our panelist for being here. With jason. Maybe giving us remarks. You herepy to have usause im like some of journalist and think tank types, they runs planning in akron, ohio. Its rust belt. I think can tell us whats going there out of ohio and give us a lesson for how we can actually in places like that. Take it away. Thank you so much for having me. Its great to be here in d. C. With all of you. I think when lewis were talking before, i was going to offer up startle of thoughts as we to frame the discussion. I think in a lot of our cities my part of then country, what were seeing in a lot of ways what i would call big. Nd of bigidea that these corporations, big government, big plans and projects, are us. G to save i think if you look at the trajectory of whats happened in a lot of our cities, particularly in the rust belt as lewis said, urban renewal was one of those big kind of topdown commanding control toategies that was supposed revitalize us. Fast forward, 40 or 50 years, that didnt happen. I think the next step in lot of i i calls what prosperity, theology of building stadiums convention centers. Not to say those things arent some cases we can probably all point to projects neverrobably should have been built. Silver the idea that bullet project is going to save your city. A conventionuild center, step two is question success. Step three is we dont necessarily have a plan to get from here to there. Particularly in ohio and michigan and other parts of my lately, ie country, think a lot of people have i would call predestination theology. We need to shrink. Only hope for us is to basically shut down our cities. A big fan of that approach. I think it is important to be the market and about some of our challenges. We have incredible assets in our the country. I always make the case in akron, city of 200,000. We have four Million People drive. A an hour i refuse to believe with good get. 01 ofplace, those people back in the city and start to increase the population. I think thats a matter how we go about doing those things. Just one of the other quick thought. The rubricat with of conservatism, lot of the discussion was stereotype. Conservatives were always pro and antiurban. Lot of people suburban and urban a sense ofraving community and sense of place. I think that goes back to what i saying about big versus small. I think theres a lot more Common Ground out there than a first think. Might i think some of the ideas maybe reconsideres can with cities would be in our part of the country, this is midwest andthe northeast, local government is extremely fragmented. It gets very difficult to have regional cooperation. Are goodhere government practices of sharing services, consolidating things. Thats something we have to explore. I remember i was part of projectble communities that the Obama Administration through hud and d. O. T. And epa on. We had a lot of Tea Party People those meetings saying we up acommunist and setting totalitarian regime in northeast ohio. I think within some of that coming up, there were real concerns about is the going to come in and term people where to live. To make cities competitive and have people want them. E and live in not prohibit people. Thats something thats different in our part of the coast. Than the here, a lot of real estate expensive. So in akron i can sell you a really 150,000. For ill sell you a lot for 200,000. That the400 of them city owns. Just some thought. With part ofosing it, thinking about the shared challenges and the shared partsunities in different of the country how to move forward. Ive had the distinct lesson ofliving in different parts the nation and several different thinkof may notes which i if you boots on the ground experience whats happening in communities. An in farmhouse and moved to alexandria condo on the third floor. The most neighborhoods in america. Spent some time in a world war era suburb and got to see the impacts that divide from the walkable nature of downtown had life ofof the community that suburb. Great blessing in a actorian fixer upper with front porch. Having a child, i think its someonezing how having small that you push around in a stroller changes your relationship with the streets makes it intimate and terrifying. One thing that jane jacob said in the American City birth, she thought what she was writing mainly to large cities. It was applicable to places where people didnt know each other. Where you interacted with strangers on a daily basis. Argue that is true of most places in america today. Smallunately, lot of towns and suburbs no longer have the sort of social fabric that leads them to feel that they have a community. They know the people they pass on a daily basis. Theres no longer of that at the grocery store. Whatgument would be that we see in her work is more applicable to more communities outside of the large city. We can fix some things via cultural and social means. However, theres a way in which we can build an environment that encourages people to spend time together. A storyads me to actually. My great grandfather and his a farm. Grew up on there were seven of them. They had a farm in which the field was right next to the watermelons. Theyr mel listen will field through the corn field everyday after school. Watermelon and bring back to the corn themed and eat it. To her and apologized and said, mother were sorry. Thosed to you and stole watermelons. She said why do you think we watermelons next to the corn field. Saying, a long way of we can foster serendipitous fellowship in the environment. Thats becoming increasingly important in current days and days to come. Thank you. I love that story. I have to steal it. Lewis for putting this together. This is really an extraordinary event and an extraordinary craft discussion. Having for the past few years working at this intersection urbanism and conservativism. I heard a lot of things. I heard that conservatives dont like cities. Want anything to do with cities. Thats not true. Donteard that cities like conservatives but they ast want conservatives just well as they disappeared. To understand and is just how many of us are in so places. And how for all the reputation get of being cultures of liberalism. Tenants ofal conservativism of an attitude towards preserving tradition of an attitude towards strengthening peoples agency. City. Are present in. Arty labels may come and go but conservatism is present. Builte have seen is a environment that was not planted many places. Rather was driven apart. Apart byny cities torn projects that snakes through intentionally, poor neighborhood, black neighborhoods in an ideal progress. Highways are good so more highways are better and highways in cities have to be just as highways outside of them. We saw lot of enthusiasm that lot of good architecture, lot of good urbanism. Cities in america, you see them starting to try and prepare. To put pieces back placesr and there are where its happening. One of the great sites of that detroit. Ty of as bad as its reputation gives you to believe. Thats gone through things no other city in america has. It has gone further down. In detroit, in all of that darkness and all of that trouble, there has been a spirit houseple who move into a that you can get for not even but 150 and fix it up. Next house. Up the you know, for not much money, parcel. Get a block, a over the years, they can work at fixing them and inviting neighbors and creating neighborhood where they are. The act of taking a place where no one lived and making it live again. Le to thats a great thing to see. In many places across the country. Many downtowns. To indianapolis, 30 ands ago, looked at itself said we are no place. We are a suburb that is as a metropolitan area. Downtown. N a it knew it needed a core. It knew that it needed a place and gaine to come their identity and come to know each other. In places you see places like im guessing lot of people in this room were the 1980sw york in and 1990s. Were made. The dystopia was for a more imaginable than the birthing, concentration of Economic Activity of art, vitalities that today. Nts new york city whats important to realize is were looking forward is just as the big planners who thought they were going to everything, could not their mistakes. So too lot of the ideas that we necessarily must not come to place. What will happen is that people will be citizens and activity will happen. We can either help that by encouraging the built be better and to community or make it work and make it harder. Ill just close by mentioning like akron. Places jason written theres strong problems. You need bring people in. In the places that have come revitalized like new york, like San Francisco, like seattle increasingly. Theres a supply problem. These places where people are gathering to conduct Economic Activity, social activity, art. It is so attractive that many are coming in but lose describedt and made it possible to build before that. There was a supply crisis in this country. Theres anything that conservatives should understand the supply side problem. Theres an opportunity for us to to take forceful leadership to say, where theres Economic Activity, people should be able to go. Where there are demand side we should invite people to come in. Great, thats a great to start us off. Some we can interact with of the what are some of the practical things being done jason, maybe you can tell us more about how directing this supply side problem . Withou able to compete washington and seattle and that . Like whats the kind of medium terms thea place like akron and rust belt . One of the luxuries place think wen has, i dont have to compete with well never compete on those terms. Think its north even necessarily that healthy to see it as a competition. Cities these historically had niche for why it is where it is. Citynking about the best that you can within that niche. Akron the challenges in that im confident we can overcome, over time and with applying some good practices, we dont have a lot of demand right now. But a lot of that is, we dont have a lot of demand for the have. That we akron was the Fastest Growing city in the United States and 1920. 10 we tripled in population. If you think about what was between 1910 an 1910 and 1920 and automobile. Built half the tire on planet earth in that decade. The decades following that. The typical house in akron is 1914, two story wooden frame house with a front porch. House in 1914,t 103 years, some of the neighborhoods where that house is attractive, theyve up. Fixed we tear down 500 houses every year in the city of akron. Those houses fast where we detroit prices. 10,000, 8000 and 4000. Were the most Affordable Housing markets in the United States. An awesome thing if you want to make money building something or rehabbing a house. A mas wiz if you buy a house sell it for 40. Thats not real good return on your investment. Wet we have to do is how do work with that supply and demand framework. Weeks agoto say three citywide. D if you build new house in akron, youll pay zero property tax on the next 15or years. Its not a silver bullet. Its not going to equally encourage building every single part of the city. I think it is a powerful tool. That were doing is, our zoning code like a lot states,s in the united regulates heavily the use of land but not so much what things and feel like. If you want to put a barbershop it will beo a house, incredibly difficult. If you want to build a dollar street00 yards up the with a giant parking lot, no problem. Do is turn ite to on the head. Make it easier for people to have more flexible use that make a little bit more stringent about what things look and feel like. Lot a lot of cities, we lost a lot of Historic Urban forums. Becoming very suburban looking place. The bigone of opportunities that we have, not a lot of cities on the coast fairlyecause land is ton ofsive, we have a infrastructure in the city of akron. And would go for cleveland detroit. We were the leading edge of the boom. Y building Traffic Congestion, i live when friends and colleagues say we have traffic. We have no traffic. My commute is nine minutes. Opportunity we have now were in the midst of a tear down of one mile of urban core of the city. The freeway was built for 100,000 cars in the 1970s. Was never finished. It carried 20,000 cars about ten years ago. The good decision not to double down on that awful investment that should have never been made. Now, were carrying that freeway out. 30 acres we can redevelop. Or mixed use. Rk we do have a lot of opportunities if you know where to look for that. Matter of being the best city we can. If we do that, we will be to people. Off that. If we can come back to the cultural side. Of place. Ance how that attracts people and of value. Se think one problem that relates to that is this is a of smalln a lot communities that ive seen and interacted with. Cities, the San Francisco of the world attract people. The smaller to communities surrounding them. Usually they become suburb. Lot of them experience that aansformation from once being vibrant rural town to becoming a Bedroom Community for people who whogroceries and elsewhere buy Everyday Needs who go ahead and go to church in the city as church to going to locally. In addition, lot of local businesses suffer. Trying to answer the question of how we make ourselves unique, vibrant, powerful both socially and economically. Are beingur resources drained from us. They have this feeling becoming faceless. Do think its interesting to see how a lot of zoning and place ands issues in lot of the money that goes into development, i believe it should be redirected into the small town built environment. Its downtown. There. Se houses houses that are making them places that people want to live so that all of those resources arent just pulled away from whats already being created and already beautiful. Little bit of help. But continues to build a community that was once strong now starting to fall apart. I wonder if you can talk to the preverse of incentives in place in terms of urban set up. Federal financing. Money onend infrastructure. How we can if we have new big infrastructure bill, leastt can do to at create a level Playing Field for infrastructure thats friendly towards walkable urbanism. Absolutely. One of the great challenges that encountering now is, just much infrastructure, jason was describing, was built in times. Culiar for most of america, it wasnt boom. Bber particularly but it was the baby boom. It was when the greatest came home from world war ii and settled the fran tier. Government had got involved from the new deal. Institutions like the federal Housing Agency and they involved. They set up very specific and very specific institutions to create what they wanted. What they wanted was what was fashionable at the time. The dispersed suburb. Separate everything out as jason was describing. Closely because nobody wanted a tire factory in the middle of their single orily residence neighborhood. They wrote these regulations. Did not account for were what you were discussing mainstreamaditional where you have little more where you can have an the store front. During the day the grocer looks eye on theps and home and at night, the people case anyoneout in is threatening or breaking into the shop. This pattern there are many wisdoms to it. List here. It was the core of every thiscan downtown until point. Because the federal financing standard would not permit a mixer of uses. Saw themselves as residential only or commercial only. Financing dried ands the entire banking market the direction that the feds were pointing. Sort of dug upst by people who were wondering why better. T build things this obstacle was discovered. I notice there are people on the to figure outg how they can fix the federal program. Not so that incentives and some poured into a new preferred form. Playinger so that the field can be leveled. So that when people decide that iny want to build something their place, they can access the thatt and they can make investment. That article in you mentioned, he described the a Walkable Development has. Lot of people write about cities get this wrong. Its just about big cities. Seeing denseification everywhere. Youre seeing suburb and wantizing because people walkability. People want to be able to walk to a store. There. Ce premium is people will build it and people will come. Question is, if were going to let the legacy city, the that already exist build it, and let people come or if pushing themo keep further out. Want to ask to anybody on the panel before we open it up we allstions, i think pretty much agree that urbanism suspect great increasing walkment is great. Theres a lot of movement. Theres a push back to all of projects. Im sure jason deals with this on the ground and john probably with it to some extent. Dont fond to people who want any change. Dont want to increase density. Make the case for this new vision of restoring walkable urbanism . 20 years in local government taught me anything its that people never like change. I think that whatever the change is, you have to be kind of the longo be in it for haul. You got to willing to listen and tweak things. Wisdom in the crowd. Maybe sometimes with individuals morea little bit problematic. One thing this job has taught me pop layer belief favor,ns are very in heavy government regulation of other peoples private property. Really does come up in the real world with ozoning all the time. Cities, akron to like, theres move airbnb is a great thing. We have a growing refugee city of akron. E 6 or 7000. We did aerts biggest block in United States in akron two years ago. Jason fell in love with the neighborhood. Created exchange house. Rehabbing a house he bought for 22,000. It Cultural Center and doing airbnb. Airbnb are getting more popular. The other hand, we do have rent out their house for parties. People wouldost agree probably not reasonable in Single Family neighborhood to have 150 people regularly hanging out in your front yard. Two people,ou have theyre eating breakfast with your dog is probably okay. How do we navigate that environment. Even in the city like akron where Traffic Congestion is pretty much nonexistent. Certainly by d. C. Or any other coastal standard. Our mayor who i worked for, has progressive with the idea of doing what we call road diet. Thatg streets and roads were built for mar traffic. Great thing another luxury we all we need to do is take paint. We can turn that four lane video road with bikene lanes. Its pretty easy to do. Back. L sometimes get push from people of taking away the lanes t will take me they make up a number of how much longer they think will take to get somewhere. Withwere able to do projects like the better block, we shrunk a five lane street to a two lane street with bike lanes. Theeasured all weekend change in average speed of the traffic. Carmageddon didnt happen. It took 12 seconds longer for there. To get through thats another thing in the planning profession thats changing. Which i think is great. Back to the scientific method. Ofgot a whole industry consultant and people that do traffic study and sophisticated computer models. Thats how i starred my started my career. Stop to think why dont i have somebody stand outside and film traffic for an what it does. Get rid of a lane. I think thats one of the things changing and its healthy and making our cities better. It eases public perception. Demonstrate with live real world experiences this is do theseens when they interventions. Ou can learn what not to do anybody else want to address . Harnessing local perception too is always going to be helpful just because people who know thatstreet street and they know the traffic on it. I would argue that most want a dead end street. They dont want their towns to heavily covered with traffic they dont feel like dog orn walk with their children. Most people who live in these understand the magazine difference that happens when you take the street from the car and give if back to the townspeople, theyre going to want to than theyre going to for it. I live in a community now that backghting for streets from commuter traffic. Its very staunchly advocately for wider sidewalks. Come past. Will reeducating all ourself. Raised in a generation thats car industry. Its community and its not the car. Heavier cargive us traffic. I think that involves necessarily more pedestrians and more fellowship that happens by by fouropposed to wheels. I would also just indicate speaking of northbound new urbanism, great timetutions it is intensive. But, people who do it well do it well. Of gathering all stakeholderrers area together and working through the issues what you want your place to look like. It helps to be able to say, all right, heres a picture where well. Ing was done want that. Say, we warran but you want to ban that. Startedhe conversation at least. I wont sit up here next to jason and be able to say its and to get political input buyin. Government is not easy. Much less. Ment some people, theyre able to push it through and theyre able to make good things happen. Lets take are the next ten minutes before our next panel and take some questions. I think we have a mic. Mic andwait for the identify yourself and keep your questions short so panels can respond. Well get in a lot of questions. Over here. As was mentioned, lot of the with sort of u. S. Suburbans. Wling government incentives pushed it way. Conservatives, at least in the u. S. , are pretty ideologically opposed to spending regulation. Taking away just the government will result in that reverse this more half century of wrought . Rail is expensive. I think what were dealing with in a lot of cases in cities across the u. S. , this is a very wholistic cultural regimen. Government regulation is definitely a factor in how we build things the way we do. I think when youre talking how developers build, yearsgotten 60 or 70 doing it in a certain way. Although, i think change in certainly a great way. We should do that more. Building is, the developing community. It depends on which city were talking about. Lot of times well want to build city. An style in a the third factor is, what we ine talking about earlier in the public. Mixed use, sounds like a idea to everyone in this room. The neighbors might feel differently. I think its navigating those publications in the sector private sector in the citizenry. John alluded to this earlier. We kind of turned our back on of how to build cities. Chuck marrones writing strong town. He was a great advocate of this. Just in akron last week. We threw a lot of stuff out the window after world war ii. Behink the country going to repenting leisure from a lot of resourcessquandering of the time. T for a long akron we had a Downtown Parking requirement. Its kind of silly that we had that. Rid of it. No longer do we force you to figure out to build a certain amount of space per unit. That was 1. 5 spaces per unit. Did talk a lot about maximums of parking minimum. I think the jury still out in literature. Theres kind of a market urbanism argument against the saying now government is intervening too much. Other people see its a necessary corrective. My own thought is probably enough to say, we wont force parking. Ild too much most robuste findings with social science increases density leftist power all over the world. Is anynything evidence that increasing density republicans. Is there red city model or red state model . You. [laughter] that. L take because this is an event by the american conservative, i have to first point out conservative and often and are not often arent things that go together. Looking from a partisan and republican which in fairness, we are in washington d. C. , note isnteresting to that, only one of the 20 largest cities right now has a republican mayor. Yearsas not the case 20 ago. There has been a sorting that is taking place. That is due to we can speculate about a number of reasons for that happening. It from folks i talk to is disinvestment from the party. You strengthen cities and you dont put any resources or cities, then the people who are paying attention better there. O i talked to w. The great people who is working in the Republican Party to try and push back and resources for people in cities who want to do policy work. Theres been a great vacuum of policy work. Not a surprise that if youre running and you dont have any ideas and none of your funders or none of your Party Infrastructure care about a place, that place wont respond well to you. In places in other places, you have seen very interesting models. Of oklahoma isr republican. Is a very interesting figure. Acquired republican mayor through interesting means. Has one nevertheless. Youll find opportunities for good policy. To that whenespond you have it to present to them. You need something to offer they give you their vote. Take somebody in the back. Of talk we had up here were about cities that have demand problems. Actually in the House Commission in Arlington County just across the river. Supply problem. One of the more difficult things i return into in talking to residents, beyond that, people of relationships between more supply and what that effect that has on house prices. People that understand supply has strong incentive to not allow more housing in their neighborhood. The people who dont understand demand, see new development, see it tends to be more expensive and conclude development is the reason why things are so expensive. Pricesust stop building, will become more affordable. The causation is other way around. Unless you succeed in destroying makes themat attractive to live there. How do you even sell to that more supply generally deals with housing problems how do you create for existing property owners, why should you care putting up four units down the street as opposed to to Single Family . Ill just jump to say california is a very interesting model here. Theyre dealing with the worst housing crisis in the country. Seeing is exactly a Political Coalition forming called embyism. That is attempting to bring this Market Wisdom and advocate for building while also being in discussed with cities. R in they create coalitions that housing in any form. Whether its affordable itsdized housing whether market rate. The important thing is, you have housing. Arket rate the less of it you have the more gets. Ive Everything Else the more that people stop market housing, the more that their are driven out of home. That is a message that you have home. Ve for the incentive, theres a real governance issue here. Its one that we may have to at. Seriously which is where we place veto over stability to create places for people to live. For people to do things with property. We have placed that power at the level. Cal conservative localist, im generally for local. All power to the but, as americans, we have as we behind us, a great tradition of recognizing when incentives be balanced and when governmental structure need to ambitions you check ambition and interest to check interest. It maybe well, we need to take a look at ourg governance structure. Onerobably got time for more question. Thanks. I wanted to bring back up johns, detroit example. We were in detroit together. Really amazing stuff. To anybody who hasnt been detroit. Downtown detroit has turned over. 138 square miles of detroit, havent seen much change. Wet i want to ask, how do build an Urbanism Movement Going Forward that is actually equal access. That brings Economic Growth not wants to gohe money but to the places that need it the most. How we build something that isnt just making great places for people who will live there next. But for the people who will live there now . Thats the really great question. Ways that question is almost the flip side of the one about supply. In the arlington example of byple being very freaked out new housing and what that going to do. Country,t of the detroit certainly is almost been the opposite concern that people will read about gentrification in new york and San Francisco new happens in that gentrification jeannie is out the bottle. To minimize the concerns conces that drive why people might feel that way. Whensponse in my city people say gentrification, that will be a great problem for us have. Im very familiar with this. A lifelong akronite. Part of the country has been negative about the future of cities. People almost get this weird stockholm syndrome. Whoever coined the term, should get an award. Afraid ofle are very i heard people come to me be coffeehey open second shop. Thats going oput the other one out of business. Its good to have two coffee shops. Our problem is not that we have too many coffee shops or too of anything. At a place like detroit going back to your question, we have navigate is the real concerns largely africanamerican, low income population that has been disenfranchised and had done to it for a really long time with really legit concerns. Helping people see that getting cityinvestment in that the is good thing. What makes it a challenging conversation to navigate, i its the simple rising tide lets all vote. You ever read joe portwright, of his pieces you talk gentrification in detroit. I think it is a difficult thing to navigate. I would be lying if i told you i know the secret thought for revitalizing neighborhoods that havent had investment in 40 or years. It does start with what i was saying earlier, starting to think small. Theres that same as daniel burn ham quote. That quote is done some planning professional. Cases, we a lot of did fix stuff for 50 or 60 years brought lot of ways, it us places like detroit. We have to start thinking about and ground up. Restoring places built by the live there. I think thats a great place to wrap things up on this first panel. Were going to move right into our second panel. We just ask you to bear with us. To all the folks standing in the back. I do noticed theres a couple of seats for the front. Lets give a round of applause. [applause] all right everyone. If people with take their seats. Ready for the next panel to begin. First let me thank lewis for moderating the first panel. Gracie. D again, let me say how grateful i am to all of you here and all the people who made this possible. You going can tell across the country working on this, there are people who are conservative and who are interested in cities. Of the questions that have been asked thus far. They have a lot of questions now going to ask. Tell you that as long as ive been following urbanism as policy area, never have i seen 25, a commotion as on march 2017 when a columnist dare to the new york times, the liberal city. Fortunate here to have ross delta who has been engaging a series of what he describes implausible sometimes but interesting argument to really get our political and in newconversation going directions. To has beenalked politicalfter great disruptions it has continued in track. T let me just read a little exert of it here. Conversation. We have columnist of the new york times. Atlantic, author of badd new party and religion. We have ben schwartz with us who National Editor of the conservative who has a distinguished career. Including also at the atlantic. We have aaron rend from the institute. He also runs the blog, urbano file in this cosmopolitan panel, is our representative america. Aaron grew up in a town of 50 people in rural indiana. Im looking forward to have a robust discussion about american and the american quality to eachtheyre relating other. In march, proposed we theld treat liberal cities way liberals treat corporate monopolies. Growth enhancing asset but trust and inspires against the public good. Instead of trying to make them egalitarian. Like teddyake roosevelt and try to break them up. The reason why this was so to me is coming off of this particular election in just how much our population was concentrated in places. And how much of one particular persuasion was concentrated in those places. Supere of that concentration, the popular vote, match have heard, did not the electoral vote for w. Of the history. S in american most people have decried that. Me that may be something akin to the system working. All, theter connecticut compromise that put it in place. Electoral, the college in order to try and the nation against wealth. Ated commercial so, let me just turn to you ross you to address these city folk. Why arent the cities be treated upe a trust and broken possibly . First of all, thank you so having me. This is a wonderful event. Im honored and flattered to be here. Second let me preface all my saying, second, if thanked all for having me. Everything i say tonight by noting that im a newspaper columnist. The requirement of that Job Description is to make outlandish suggestions about areas which you are generally informed. Im not an urban policy person. I have never attempted to revitalize the city of akron. I have lived in cities for much life and in fact, i guess irt of burnish my urbanist lived here in in neighborhood in seven orill for about seven years. Weve been in semirural connecticut for about the last years. For various reasons some of them having to do with kicks that has been unsuccessful experiment. We will be returning to walkable urbanism in new haven, fall. Ticut this im an admirer and enjoyer of and urbanismnism in general. That being said, americas are bad. Ities theyre bad in several different ways. Lyey are sort of effective intertwined. W. The biggest stories in our society over the last 30 or 40 the 1960s and a socioeconomic educational sorting. Increasingave the concentration of College Graduates and people with post degrees into a particular set of sort of economy, symbolic analyst cities. Westy on the east and coast and also in sort of around universitiess and in the heartland. Obviouslyntration has up sized or people wouldnt be. O it i lived it and i liked it. Lot of beautiful architecture thats much more attractive than split level sprawling culdesacs. They bring people together who Work Together and play together and go to coffee shops together of that has some kind of economic multiplier effect. You have to assume the economist assume it does, it has some sort goosing effect. People who do it like it. Those are all good things. Meansunately, it also American Society is segregated by education and before. Apital as never its segregated in ways that have political Consequences Party candemocratic claim 48 of the vote thats isn discovered all that 48 crammed into such a small if youhical area even undo every republican you still may not get the representation. Consequencess has for republicans. As you discussing before, it disincentivecans a to compete in urban areas which tonds republican politicians the important ins and outs of suburban policy. Effects. Lated effectivelyffect of pitting cities against cities. I lived in connecticut for the last two years. Grew up in connecticut. Connecticut is having lot of days. E these connecticut is a state of small cities. I like small cities. I grew up in one. And are more liveable humane than the bigger cities. Major companies and the sort of driven 20 somethings who they want to hire, dont necessarily want to live in when theres a much bigger city available. Whats happen to connecticut the ones toially have universities, has been a departure. This has happened to connecticut well. S as for instance, the city of hartford was historically the unitedapital of states. It was where wallace stephen and wrote poetry. Witha beautiful city beautiful art museum, literary tradition and so on. Want to be based there anymore. Recently, one of the last Major Insurance Companies powering one of its innovation and young and Technology Focused offices to new york city. New york city is a place that people they want to hire want to be. Its also a place that is rich and getting richer and afford the tax cuts and breaks alf things that lure vibrant company into chelsea or wherever. Whereas hartford with a shrinking base of companies cant afford that. Played outc what between new york city and boston and connecticut in between them, has played out in certain ways. Great urban revival in the revival ofes is a lop sis. Not revival of smaller cities. Where its a conservative to urban policy will be likely to flourish. Wontnal issue here, i talk about my solutions, theyre , but the pot ideas citiessue is that these population stinks. There are place from people dont have kids. Theres implication for conservative politics. Conservative politics tend to be of boosted by people who have children for various reasons. It also has implications for the future growth of the United States. The future growth of the western world. It has complicated implications that i written other columns about for the polarization of our politics and how we think about racial and demographic change. It has a lot of unfortunate implications. While im supportive of a lot of the sort of what you might call the urbanist consensus. What you united a lot of free and sort ofrvatives policywonks. Theyre not effectively serving engine of working in middle class prosperity function yearsities that exist 100 ago. San francisco can be much more dense. New york much more dense. That. E with all of sort of. But, if you make San Francisco a denser, youre not going to be building the kind of houses you could but you probably be building the kind of houses where people are going to have three kids and or 25 years. R 20 youre much more likely to be urban standard space which is a good space to a roommaterself with or girlfriend or spouse and maybe good space to have one kid. Squeezeunny skies good place to have two kids. Theyre in the places in the you encourage if more and more people to move to, youre going to get any kind of what i i think negative demographic trend in the united world. In the western while i can see the economic for that consensus and i basically support it. I think you also need to think outside the box more. Thek about sort of trajectory that this urban concentration takes us on terms ofly in polarization and partisan sort of and socioeconomically and culturally terms effects on the rest the thetry and on effects of lifecycle. When people have kids and whether they have kids and get married. Me to a partial defense to suburbization in the 1950s and 1960s. Gone on long enough. Of that penalty. For the american conservatives, story that waser titled cities without children the patron thing of urbanism. Her town. Ly, her little village. I would bringg if if you would bring up that to engage the effects of cities on families and what that means for cities versus the village that she inhabited. We heard aast panel communities. Bout connected with that family life. Agree more. You read janewhen gettingwhat you really is her whats most memorable, small towncal village life. That was largely because she was a great peculiar neighborhood. Working class neighborhood. Withessentially gentry ifgen the fun bohemian elements that many of those young innovative knowledge workers to the city. Theyre good people. I see it, iis as im a marxist conservative. I have to bring things back to relations. D social the reason these communities tot we love and were trying get back, were the product of and social andc even gender reality. Throw a this is going to just to Say Something outrageous. You cant have the community described. Ane jacobs described in similarn life. You cant are that Community Gender relations that we have now. Womenas dependent on being at home during the day. Owner didtore intervene when the children were running across the street. Was mostly eyes and ears on the street. Plain. Akes this its the mothers. This is absolutely true in suburbia. The suburbia that we all the vision that we that enticing. Quite you have kids playing in the culdesac. Yard to yard. Rom miningre women at home the children. Im not at all suggesting that era. Back to that thataying if you want community. That Community Life of the economic reality. That i think is vanished. Since im ino be the a an urban planner, i dont solution. Me up with a i see the solution. I see the kind of i see certainly the Major Urban Centers are going to be and intenselyly centers of hip young knowledge workers. Democrat or republican. Ways politics is some influential. Havens no way theyll be for middle class or working class life. Even makes things even more pessimistic. At Charles Murrays book. He was talking about this sorting that ross was describing. My god. To thatdnt get that working class life. Class doesnt could is arguable whether it could support the family life life. Mmunity that it did back then. This is reallyf nostalgia. The be able to walk to petes coffee. They want to be able to walk to the stores. What was the streetscape of new york . The most sophisticated cosmopolitan city in the country. This dreadfully monotony of shoe repair stores, Hardware Stores. It served its local population. There were some antique stores. There were some used books stores. People. Ostly local these neighborhoods are very selfcontained. We can never go back there. We cannot go back there again. Downtown is lovely. It is charming. Downtown has boutiques that serve forests. Tourists. I was him to go to that Hardware Store. Love to go to that Hardware Store but i spent all my time at home depot. It will have the selection and price. It is an important distinction. If you want to, you cannot return to that smalltown life. You cannot return to that urban neighborhood. Thank you. Interesting very perspective to comment on this. You grew up in a very small town. The smallest of small towns. You then spent time in indianapolis, chicago, and now you apply your wares in new york city. He just described how we are not going back to a previous era of massager. Nostalgia. E going where are we Going Forward . That is a good question. One of the things that i really quo isay is the status not an option. Recipe, his particular which is more of a thought experiment, may not be the right one. We need to make some serious considerations to fundamental change. There are three reasons for that. One, in the era of which we have had called the tribe of the city come economic results have been terrible in america. He foretold the rise of the superstar cities, powered by high talent, densely clustered in these walkable neighborhoods. 15 years later, he has written a book called the new urban crisis talking about the downsides that followed from some of that. 2000 come Economic Growth has been terrible. Barack obama was the first president since Herbert Hoover to the never once hit 3 gdp growth. George w. Bush was just about as bad. The 1980s and 1990s, job growth in america averaged 1. 9 per year. Since 2000 we have been averaging about. 5 per year. Calledonadjusted, has Household Incomes are lower than they were in 2000. From the bad results current regime. Something needs to change. The second thing is, the is liberal cities have benefited from deliberate government policies, especially around globalization. The sociologist that wrote the book the global city is leading international theorists on inner cities. She talks about the flat world affect. She pointed out that it is a lot more complex to do business in countries all over the world than just one country. This supply chain all over the world created demands for new forms of complex financial Producer Services and things Like International currency, International Contract law, International Accounting and marketing. These require highly specialized skills to produce that he could not get in any cities. People that do those sorts of things cluster together in a limited number of places like new york, chicago, places she labeled as Global Cities. The rise of new york and chicago came as part of the decline of this world. The globalization that spread to the factories all over the world, which was not the only factor leading to decline. Globalization played some role. It is part of what fueled the rise of the city. People like to think of globalization as something that just happened, like a meteorite. Globalization, yes there were various forms of technological improvements. Globalization was a deliberate government choice. Nafta was government policy. The uruguay round of trade talks, government action. Government has been a tremendous promoter of globalization in these policies. , whichellectual classes are disproportionately based in Global Cities have been the biggest cheerleaders for this system because they are the ones primarily benefiting from it. I think we need to look at globalization. Oftly, there has been a lot for many of these cities. Newton because of the york has benefited and norma slate from wall street bailout and a relaxed attitude towards prostitution of financial crime. Silicon valley has accomplished what it is accomplished in part because it has been given an exemption from all ordinary Business Practices with which every other business industry has to comply. Ordinary american businesses could not operate with the demographics of employees of just young, white, and asian males like Silicon Valley has been able to get away with. They would have to pay taxes on internet transactions for a long period of time. It benefited many of these cities. Government policies benefited them. It has been an era of economic underperformance. Whatever the answer is, it is time for a remake. [laughter] [applause] i am really not sure what to say. I guess i can make a couple comments. I got into one online discussion briefly about one of the questions he raised. I saw it in the original column saying whatever the concentration of having all these knowledge workers were living together, they produce any the growth. They sent me a bunch of research arguing that all things being equal, the is cities are increasing growth. Basically, it is the argument that it could have been more targeted. American growth would be more any mix without these concentrations anemic without these concentrations. Think it is worth raising another thing that is worth , one of the fascinating things i do not have an answer to this i cowrote a book about 10 years ago talking the future of the working class and the future of the american heartland. One of the things we said, this was 2005 when we were working on it, obviously the internet is going to be a great mechanism for potential. You will have lots of people who in small,to live theized American Cities, in middle of america, because housing is cheaper there and the cost of living is lower. They will be able to telecommute. A piece of a company can be sent out to a different part of the country. That will be fine because of the internet. The internet will enable physical distortion. Dispersion. Happened. Has not the reverse has continued to happen. All the people who work in the most internet enabled Country Companies what to be as close to each other as possible. Northern california that means living in the town that are unlike the old company towns. It is interesting. I do not have a full explanation for that. It is an interesting fact of america in the age of the internet. Dispersal. People do move and continue to move. We talk about the coastal, but there is plenty of growth in atlanta and phoenix. All these texan cities sprawling, suburban eyes cities that are more familyfriendly. The hyper educated, the knowledge workers come of class has not done that. The companies they work for do not do that. They have not dispersed. It is an interesting social logical and psychological story about why that is, that i have not completely figured out exactly. It is part of the story here that the internet, theoretically could geographically disperse us but has not exactly. Should i Say Something more in defense of the suburbs . Why dont you challenge as for a minute . Defense oflenge the the suburbs to this degree. The suburbs are definitely growing. They are also becoming more urban. They are gathering people by becoming, as i was discussing before, becoming more walkable. There are two ways. One is talking about new york large urban core. The other is talking about urbanism. Urbanism initiative has also always been focused on repairing the urban. Cities, if youas go to them, they are establishing downtown. Theyre are creating that walkable environment because that is what the market is demanding. Even through american zoning, the market works its work. Youso want to bring up with what you mentioned about anemic Economic Growth. Been the barrage from wey others who posit that have had Economic Growth because we have had such omitted cities. Limited cities. You were talking about how it allowed Economic Growth to roll forward. We have rosen those cities with zoning. Deregulate thee city question mark what will we get from that . In theory, if you have higher incomes available in some of these coastal cities, that should draw people from around the country to want to come there. Unfortunately, those high wages are often offset by high housing costs, which make it prohibited to people. What you see is these coastal cities have become progressively more elite in their character. New york is still the center of the financial world. The finance industry is being offloaded to places like charlotte, selig city salt store the there was a other day about denver soaking up a lot of finance jobs. A lot of them lower and mid value are moving offshore. These urban areas are becoming as they effectively become frozen thanks to building regulations. In San Francisco, you cannot you have to have special permission to build literally anything in the city. To aitely, it would be great advantage to build more and bring those Housing Prices down so that more people could enter and see a more normally functioning market. It is hard to see how that happens politically in those places for a lot of people there. They are a form of functional exclusion in the United States. Do to price they people out. Secondly, ton of people have bought houses at these high prices. There would be tremendous of section wealth if there were Housing Price declines. Anyone would fight to the nail to keep it off. You are in a proregulatory, prored tape environment. The kind of development that might relieve some of this pressure and break up some of the concentration through not Natural Market prices. When you say break up the concentration, this is my thing. Forcesunleashing market would not break up the concentration, it would bring jobs back from Salt Lake City and denver to San Francisco and new york, which would effectively limit the concentration of the uber wealthy. It would bring the jobs back to upper middle class and highly educated jobs. He would have an increase you would have an increase, but it would not be a dispersive effect. It isld have speculative as to what would happen. It would have a diluted and effect. A lot of these jobs moving to charlotte and Salt Lake City, these are the jobs that employ people who have families. The married, middleclass family with children commuting in from the suburbs. Having those kinds of people creating more diversity, demographic diversity, in the city as opposed to having the ber rich is good for the politics. You are sidebyside working with people who are different. Would reduce but what if those people become different people have they are living in San Francisco or new york question mark new york . A job can keep the person in new york and they can afford to live there in a smaller apartment or home than in charlotte. I get married a little later and i have kids a little later or not at all. Suddenly, this is the question i am trying to wrestle with. , it is nice to say we should have North Carolina republicans working with big new york city democrats. Those North Carolina republicans or democrats would not be republicans had they stayed in new york city and continued to work for that company and their culture. Right. Kids to the their colleges and universities that the aspiring class wants to send their kids to, their kids would also change. There is this cultural is the intent fit in. Aboutnt to at least talk what you listen to. If youre talking about that, there is a mindset and will do that comes with that. My family, i come from a long and of back Office Workers finance and law in york. Those people never lived in manhattan or did not live there for very long. Backoffice jobs and not just go to charlotte, the probably went to manhattan in the 1970s, from jersey city, then from jersey city to charlotte. Was it isys very hard to look at people who lead a middleclass family life in manhattan. Talk about how to revitalize major metropolitan areas, i think they begin and end with two words. Public schools. New york has terrific public they are preserved. Make 140,000 a year in charlotte and he want to raise a family and you want your kids to have the same kind of school they can go to in charlotte, it is a revolution that you had to have in manhattan. I do not see that happening. They will change you, but you will never change them. It is similar to immigration. Immigrants come to our country and they are radically transformed generation by generation, as they assimilate. However, they change the culture of our country as well. New york citys culture has been changed by the immigrants who came here. It is a twoway street area that is twoway street. The prospect for change is not high right now. To say that we are doomed to have this high cost, elite, city full of elite, highend people, tolennial type singles is basically say that structurally the commanding heights of the American Economy and culture leftbe held forever by the because you are writing off the city politically innocence. The demographics is destiny on that point. Lefteason it is so far today is because demographics changed. The king cannot afford queens anymore. That middleclass motor is gone. , is considered it is conservatism gradually retreating . You have to be in the game. Lets get in the game of questions on the audience. We should have a microphone that is able to go around. This young man over here. The Global Cities and major megalopolis is referenced a lot. Relationship between them has been a little hazy. I wonder if we could also urbanism can do of we get question mark is there an opportunity can we get . Perhaps, rather than looking to them for hopes of revitalizing , are there smaller cities that could develop as well . We could look to new urban centers with new cultural dynamics. May i jump in . I am wondering, as far as the first part of your question, this space to the point you are facing. Well, ross, you must know this town indirectly. Mumford, new jersey has become a liberal,lways highminded suburbs of new york. It had its share of country club republicans. , it is essentially journalists and labor lawyers and all sorts of lawyers , everyone in publishing moves to. It is not for poor people. It is not for secretaries. Journalistsrking and a few publishers who remain employed. You have what you have you could say this cancer has spread, if you wanted to. Mindset andal values. My son goes to a fancy prep school in new england. At the end of school he said i need to get as far away from this place as possible. We have to go to the south. I took him to the south. He spent some time in cap new the in chattanooga and knoxville. Urbany. Chattanooga seems to be a place that is really it is kind of gritty but hip. I am wondering, there is some young money here. Know what people do anymore. The problem is, this is chattanooga. Chattanooga is becoming a much more interesting, lively, vibrant place. It is all just young people without kids. This is chattanooga. If it is not going to work in chattanooga, i do not know where it will work. Let me ask you to bring in some of your perspective from having lived in indianapolis area some of the same people are around there. Indianapolis downtown has encountered some of the same revival that chattanooga has. What was the experience there . Was it a childless city . When you go to indianapolis, it is dramatically different from new york. Around to events in cities but i travel to and look at how many people are wearing wedding rings. In new york, it is like a minority. In hatton it is not that many. There is a tremendous number of single people in manhattan. The cityd send yet like indianapolis, 75 plus are wearing wedding rings. There are issues with urban schools and people raising their families and urban schools. The primary population is suburban. These cities to the extent that they have walkable neighborhoods, they are very small. They are nothing like you new york city or San Francisco density. These are regions that are definitely still shaped by the family, by married couples, by people with children. It does not always mean republicans. I know very echo conscious, families with children. They have a sense of stability and priorities with a different voice to the city. Even people with a different political persuasion who have children bring a different conversation to the city. Definitely, when you travel to other cities, you see a tremendous difference in percentage of people who are percentages of people who have kids. Assignment doesnt seem that the presence of marriage with kids inhibits or means are you not getting that urban vitalization. In fact, many people who are engaged in that process are engaged in that process precisely for their kids. Well, i just have to challenge you on all of this. First, i would say, as you pointed out, theyre using the your town they want to go on saturday night and they want to walk around kind of a disneyland version of an urban space. Theyre not living there. Theyre living in the suburbs, as you said. Theyre living in the suburbs because thats where the schools are, thats where they have to raise their kids. Sure, they might want to live in that loft space over the coffee shop but thats very expensive and again, where are they going to send their kids . And the problem is, i guess im addressing a mostly conservative all of a sudden and conservative and republican we can find distinctions but the problem is, and i think ross will support the following assertion the people who are adhering to zpeasm religious values, who are raising, who are raising their , s in stable families essentially no divorce. Its those uber talented urbanitis. Some of them are republicans, some of them are democrats, as you pointed out. But it is that group that is, you know that is adhering to going, alues and church for instance, is much stronger among the economic elite than it is for the country at large. I think we have time for one last question. Height here in the middle . Thank you. So im from texas. Im from a suburb of dallas, texas. And i have so say briefly i had never seen a doggy water fountain until i went to alexandra. I texted my mom and said mom, they have doggy water fountains. She said because they dont have kids. Something else we havent talked about is cry. Where we talk about where people want to raise their kids, you want to raise your kids in an area where you want to be sure when they walk around the street something wont happen to them. It was crass to talk about chicago and point of gun control. But people want to raise kids in a place you know theyre going to be safe. The one thing were seeing at the one thank does reduce deter crirgese more Police Presence. What does that look like politically speak something how do we be the ones arc for more cops when we know thats the one thank really decreases crime . Have i just stemmed into something here . Care to close this . How to solve sexrace remind in crime in america . There is an evasion of the issue. Just to speak from personal experience. We live on capitol hill, which is and became much more so during the time we lived there, a highly indicated, heim gentryified d. C. Neighborhood with increasingly good schools up through fourth or fifth grade. The parents had ghon and changed the culture of the school and so on and were sending their kids there. And crime has obviously gone down in American Cities dramatically in the last 20 years but there was, there is still a lot of crime in clip. Our car was stolen and capital little. Our car was stolen and taken on a joyride in alexandra. The cops found and it said were going through the things in the car. Now, do you guys own the brass nothingles . Well, sometimes we get into it. [laughter] sorry. That happened. There was a murder five blocks down from our house on christmas eve. My wifes friend was mugged i can go on with incidents in the time we lived there. It was not the only factor but once we had small children, that was a factor in our decision that we now regret to move out of the city. And it was a factor. A factor when were talking to be jane jacobs image. You let your Children Play you let them roam your neighborhood and so on. All of that plays a big role in these dynamics and, you know, the i mean, you asked a specific policy question. I think there is in, a kind of actual policy sweet spot but its a hard one to hit, which is that, you know, you need a you need you burn urban Police Forces that are more numerous and more restrained in certain ways and that the sort of you know, the left and libertarian critique of police practices, especially as white urbanitis has moved to reclaim these cities is a legitimate critique and the sort of worstcase scenarios that turn into these trials and get caught on video and so forth, all that is a real part of this sort of tension of jenerriification, among other things. You have this stop and fisk member tapty among comes. White, middle class people feel comfortable living in these neighborhoods. I remember from my own time in capitol hill reading online listers and twitter threats of people saying white people moved down the street from me and started calling the cops on me when i took a walk. Thats a repeat too. Again, issues of rails in america are extremely difficult to handle and finesse, but i do think theres a lot of dat ai on Police Presence and numbers data on Police Presence and numbers as a deterrents to climb could be and is effectively put to use by police departments, but i think you could have a world with less crime, more police and less sort of overt stop and frimbing. Is it actually azphreeverbl especially in the kareem current climate, thats harder for me to say. We were talking to be 1960s and 1970s and the urban flight and so on. Obviously the role of crime gets bigger and bigger in the 1960s and 1970s as the crime rate builds. Even before, that crime rates in urban areas in early 1950s were as low as at any point in american history. Heyre still much lower higher than in the sue burks. People will always find something attractive about being in the neighborhoods, where we are now and will soon leave. One of our intimates who are thinking were making a mistake will occasionally tell us that were moving to crime haven. Yeah, theyre tough. And they will not cease being touch or being discussed. I want to just briefly thank again the american conservatives nd hillsdale for having us here. I want to thank ross, ben, and aaron for joining us and i want to encourage everyone to continue reading the people that have been up here today because the question of cities and to have ways in which we live together are getting, in anything, more and more relevant and theres some fantastic work being done on that by people who have been on this panel and others. So please help me give a round of applause. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is rpo